The Jerusalem Design Week, Hansen House’s flagship event, returns for its 13th edition, set to take place between the 19th and 26th of September 2024, at Hansen House in Jerusalem. As in previous years, JDW will be showcasing dozens of exhibitions, installations, events, and unique projects featuring a multitude of local and international designers.
Cultural Events in a Time of War
This year, the JDW’s main theme is “The Ark”. The story of Noah’s ark encapsulates many questions that have always concerned human culture, particularly in the design sphere. This is pertinent now more than ever: an ark is resilience in the face of crisis, a temporary home, hope amid raging seas.
The ark’s cargo is the result of curation, a process where choosing one thing over another creates a narrative, highlighting one story among many others. The decisions determining what goes into the ark reflect value-based priorities that exist in the spaces between the poles of life and death, past and future, essence and excess, necessity and indulgence, preservation and annihilation.
For one week in September, Hansen House’s indoor and outdoor spaces will be filled with dozens of installations, performances, shows, exhibitions and projects in a wide range of design disciplines – with many making their debut.
‘The Vault’ displays capsuled collections selected by designers in order to create new forms of visual syntax. These offer up exciting new interpretations to the questions surrounding conservation of material culture; the ‘Hostel’ hosts a series of academic design research programs presented as temporary voyage spaces, and working with textile, fashion, architecture, and visual communication; the brand con, led by designer/entrepeneur Neil Cohen will be featured in an emergency pop-up store; the Haifa-based street art collective BROKEN FINGAZ presents a piece that explores the space between hope and desperation, where visitors may send letters with messages of peace to relatives or strangers.
Like every year, JDW is hosting a wide range of collaborative content. This year, designer Shahar Kedem joins forces with the Israel Meteorological Service and local weather forecaster ‘Yerushamayim’ to create an alternative meteorological weather farm, presenting a current and future report on info collection and measurement; our annual ‘Matchmaker’ program features a collaboration between designers and sound musicians working in Jerusalem – together creating echo chambers for a periodical soundtrack.
As a special undertaking this year, JDW goes beyond the gates of Hansen House to create unique collaborations with leading cultural centers around Jerusalem. The legendary red bus, which has been employed especially for this project, will carry visitors along a daily route that begins at several points around town and ends at the central event in Hansen House.
Among the participating institutions are the National Library, the Israel Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art, Mazkeka, the Dojo, Hamiffal, the Yellow Submarine, the Train Theater, the Miklat Gallery, Beta gallery, Studio of Her Own, Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, as well as many other.
Every year, JDW sets out to create new works and raise public funds and resources for non-commercial design projects. The works mentioned above are but part of a wide range of projects, installations, exhibitions, and performances that make up the mega-exhibition known as JDW.
About Jerusalem Design Week
Launched in 2011, Jerusalem Design Week, the Hansen House flagship project, is Israel’s largest and most influential public event dedicated to design – with an extensive program full of events and performances, as well as local and international design exhibitions.
Hansen House makes extensive and diverse efforts to both advance the field of design in Jerusalem and support Israeli designers. Each annual edition of JDW revolves around a different theme that explores situations rooted in the local context of Jerusalem and Israel, while also bearing international relevance. This tradition is grounded in the belief that Israel’s singular cultural landscape enables it to serve as a living laboratory for the exploration of urgent global issues, and also that design has a duty to respond to these issues. Thus, each year, individual designers and teams working in various design disciplines are invited to respond to the annual theme in their own way, by developing new projects and ideas.
Jerusalem Design Week is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the Jerusalem Development Authority. It is organized and managed by Hansen House and Ran Wolf Ltd.
General management: Smadar Tsook and Ran Wolf, Ran Wolf Ltd.
Chief Curators: Dana Benshalom, Sonja Olitsky
Artistic Director: Roni Yeheskel
Theory and Content Director: Dr. Jeremy Fogel
Free Entry
For further information and the JDW 2024 full program, please visit our official website: WWW.JDW.CO.IL